Being Perfect
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Craig thinks about sorting things out with his dad when he's first living with Joey in ninth grade
1. Chapter 1

Healing time. Getting better. I could almost feel it, sitting here in Joey's living room, just watching T.V., just feeling free from all that tension I'd always lived with. I told my dad I'd stay with Joey while we sorted this stuff out, but now it seemed like we never would. How do you sort that out? He must have known what he was doing was wrong, whether he could control it or not. I think it was beyond sorting out.

"Supper? Craig? Any ideas?" Joey said. He was running the water over some dirty dishes Angela had left around, and he wasn't screaming at her and telling her what a screw up she was and how he worked hard and she couldn't even do her part. My dishes were already cleaned. I'd learned those lessons early and well. But I just watched him in amazement as he washed dishes and Angela ran around messing stuff up right behind him and he wasn't even mad.

"I don't know. Pizza?" I said, and I could sit here and feel the lack of tension. So often with my dad, even when he doesn't hit me or anything there is this claustrophobic feeling, like the air is too thick, like everything I do is wrong. He has this silent disapproval. But Joey doesn't.

"Sure, pizza," he said, and Angie yelled, "pizza!" and Joey didn't say she was too loud and she was disturbing him and all of that. He tossed me the phone and I caught it.

"Call them, okay?" he said, and set in to do the dishes in ernest, and he told Ang to clean up her toys but it was different. There was no threat behind his words, no silent, "or else," I closed my eyes for a second, breathing deeply. It was so different here. It was hard to get used to it sometimes, even though it was better.

I called up the pizza place and ordered pepperonis and onion and Joey yelled to me that he wanted a steak and cheese grinder, too. Everything was so haphazard here, so spur of the moment. Nothing was spur of the moment at my house. My dad planned out everything. We didn't just order up pizza and grinders because we didn't know what to have for supper. I thought he was so much like that because he was a surgeon and they had to plan out every aspect of the surgery or people could die. Or maybe he was like that before and it was just a good job for him, where he could be neurotic and controlling and everything was sterile. That's how he wanted our lives to be, but they weren't. And for some reason I had to take the blame for that.

But I wondered about him, my dad. What was he doing now? Working late since I wasn't home? Sitting at the table with his hands together like praying, head down, thinking bad things about me? Things like I deserted him just like my mother did and that I was ungrateful and all of that? Maybe he was blaming himself, thinking he'd hurt me beyond repair.

I didn't know. He was unknowable to me. Like that time at supper when he said the mysteries of the universe were infinite to him, that's how I felt about him. He said he loved me, he bought me a ton of shit, he was like that. But he was angry and violent and I felt like I was always the target. At home there was no one to take the pressure off of me. If it was something I had done, or if it was something from work and I was just the easy one to take it out on, either way, it fell on me. And that sucked. It really did.

Sorting it out. How would we do this? I mean, he was angry and impatient and blamed my mother and all of that but what about me? People were awfully big on telling me it wasn't my fault but how did they know? Were they there? Were they there when I was late or when I left shit laying around or when I disobeyed him? I wasn't perfect. I wasn't. And maybe I didn't deserve to get hit because of it but maybe some of it was my fault.

But for now it was nice to be here, to not have to worry about someone's mood and temper every single second of every day. In school I knew that I was coming here, and I could concentrate better. I could sleep at night and not feel so tired in school. I could kind of be myself. I felt like who I thought I was had sort of gone away because I had to be someone I wasn't, I had to try and be perfect. It didn't work, of course. But still, I had to kind of hide inside of myself while I lived with my dad.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't know how I could go back and live with him, my dad. There wasn't any getting around it, I supposed. I mean, maybe he could change. It wasn't impossible. But I thought it was kind of unlikely.

"Craig, can you help out around here?" Joey said, and I looked around at the mess. Man, can Angela make a mess. There were dishes and toys and just junk everywhere. But I kind of liked it. It was better than how neat stuff had to be at my house.

"Yeah," I said, but kind of sullenly. I didn't like to be told what to do, and it was weird with Joey being the one telling me stuff. It was like, was he trying to be my dad? It was just a weird situation. Dad, step-dad, I was kind of confused. How many dads could one person have?

They were so different, my dad and Joey. It was kind of unbelievable, really. Like, my dad was such a neat freak. You couldn't even have rings on the table from glasses, that's what the coasters were for. I didn't think Joey even had coasters. And I always had to be home at six o'clock for supper, and God help me if I wasn't. Joey was much more flexible. He was kind of like, you know, fit it to the situation. And that time that I was late because I was taking pictures? My dad was pissed. Joey wouldn't have cared, not like that.

Joey looked kind of frazzled sometimes, though. Kind of overwhelmed. He went to work and worked all day and then came home and picked up after us and made supper and paid bills and tried to do stuff with Ang because she was still so little. My dad never had that overwhelmed-ness about him. He kind of went from being calm and cool to silently pissed to flipping out. He kind of kept things together for just so long, then he'd explode. I knew Joey wouldn't. I mean, I knew. I guess sometimes it kind of worried me. I'd think that he might end up getting so angry, just like my dad did.

I liked living with Angie. I didn't want to go back with my dad in a way, because of her. Her whole life I'd hardly got to see her. She reminded me of my mom so much. I was kind of getting upset thinking about it, thinking how I'd have to go back and my dad wouldn't let me see her, just like before. It wasn't fair. That's the thing, so much about living with my dad wasn't fair. I couldn't do what I wanted, I couldn't see who I wanted to see, and he'd get so out of control, and how is this going to change? By going to a few anger management classes? That's it? I mean, he hit me for years. Years. With belts and punching me and kicking me. Sometimes it would be months between the beatings. During those months I'd start to think that maybe it was over with, that he wouldn't do that anymore. I'd hope it and then kind of start to believe it, despite how he'd be getting more upset, and all those sarcastic little comments that he'd make, and I could just see it coming. There was this tension, this sense that nothing I could do was right at all.

So I don't know. I guess the thing is I don't really want to go back. I don't believe that he can stop anymore. That's why I ran away. I was kind of at the end of things. I'm dreading going back.


	3. Chapter 3

I can feel this dread settling on me, thinking of when I have to go back. Is it that I think he can't change? Maybe that's not being fair. He could change, maybe, if he wanted to. I knew the things he's done. He went to medical school, became a surgeon, rose up through the ranks at the hospital. I knew. So he could become less violent and volatile if he wanted to. But maybe it didn't work like that. This wasn't anatomy and physiology, this wasn't cutting into someone when they were unconscious and fixing things. This was interactive, this was emotional, this was his being a father and screwing it up. That's what he always threw at me, he'd say, "you always screw up," And I'd feel like that was true. But maybe I was supposed to be screwing up. I was only 14. I needed to be making certain mistakes to learn stuff. Yet there was my dad, making me feel like I had to be perfect. I couldn't be. So then, was I demanding the same from him? I wanted a perfect father, not one who worked like crazy and got all stressed out and wouldn't let me mention my dead mother and who beat me all the time.

I wanted Joey. I liked Joey, liked how he made you feel like things were okay, like if things weren't they could be, and he made me feel like everything wasn't all my fault. My dad, he always made me feel like everything was my fault, from my mother leaving us and dying to the rings on the tables. Anything out of place, anything off, being late, missing dinner, talking about my mother, missing her, wanting to see Angie, all of that, all my fault.

I didn't want to go back, but I would have no choice. I understood that. Being 14 meant not having a choice and not having a say, and I'd go back with him and the old caution would resurface. The old anxiety. I wouldn't have my friends over anymore. I'd have to be sure and be home on time, no more of this calling Joey and saying I'd be late, and he'd say fine and could I pick up a bag of chips or juice boxes for Angie on the way home. No more late night pizza dinners, no more hanging out with Joey and Caitlin, watching them get buzzed on wine and beer, laughing, watching raunchy comedy specials. Everything would have to be neat and in its place and I'd have to be on time and nothing would be right and I'd get hit again.

I didn't really miss my dad. Things had gotten too bad for too long, that's why I left. That's why I wanted to let the train hit me. I wanted out. I don't miss him, but I kind of wish things had been better and I have this crippled hope that things can be better. Do I dare to hope that he can change? That he can see that he was such a jerk to me? He always insisted on being right, on being so right about everything that it seems far fetched to think he'll admit that he was wrong.

I basically wanted to be able to stay here, with Joey and Ang, and not have this fact of going back with my dad hanging over my head. It was like, I could never really adjust to being here because I'd just have to leave anyway. And I didn't want to go back home. I was nobody nowhere.

The only one out of my friends who has a clue about this is Sean, and I don't really hang out with Sean that much anymore. He's in grade eight, so it makes it harder. I hang out with Marco and Spinner and Jimmy more than Sean, and they don't know what Sean knows. They don't know what a real wreck I was. And I like that. I like that they think I'm kind of normal, when I know that's not the case. Sean knows it, too. He knows how my dad was, and he knows how I was because of it. I hate that he saw that. I hate that he saw me falling apart. But my veneer was cracking. I had been pretending for a long time at that point, and I just couldn't do it anymore. Poor Sean.

Emma knows, too, I guess. But I don't hang out with her at all, although I do like her friend Manny. Manny. She's so cute. Kind of childish, though, but cute. Man, Manny. If I move back in with my dad would he let me go on a date with someone? Anyone? I doubt it, I really do. I don't think he'd let me do anything. I can actually feel myself getting depressed thinking about this, going back with him. And when, huh? A year, two years, a couple of months? It's just this huge sword hanging over my head, ready to come down at any moment.

Joey has tried to bring up the subject of me going back with dad but I don't say much. I don't want to go, what more can I say? But for some reason I feel like I can't let Joey know that, and I can't let my dad know that I don't want to move back in with him, and I have to keep pretending that none of this is a big deal, but I can't do that either. There's nothing I can do.


End file.
